


Luminous Beings Are We

by Ma_Kir



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: Force Ghosts, Force Spirits, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-15 03:32:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14151021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ma_Kir/pseuds/Ma_Kir
Summary: After the events on Crait conclude, Luke Skywalker takes his final steps towards ascension.





	Luminous Beings Are We

And it is done.

Luke Skywalker falls to the ground from where his body once hovered. Pain wracks his body as the power of the Force burns through him, brighter than the great sun of Ahch-To even as it burns away the murk of the sky. Just as the energy of the Force is doing to his body, to his flesh ... to his material form.  

The Jedi Master, now fully himself again for the first time in years, struggles to maneuver himself upward, into a sitting position. He breathes in and out, letting the Force wash away his fatigue, his pain, the aches of old age, the ravages of time, his guilt, and his regrets. A great sense of relief, beginning to rise when the ascended spirit of Master Yoda destroyed the husk of the Great Tree, lightens his back and shoulders. He can breathe again now. He can just ... breathe ...

He moves into the lotus position, feeling the nexus of Ahch-To -- of the First Jedi Temple -- centre him once again. The cycles of night and day, growth and cessation, life and death, flow through him, the planet, the sector, and the Galaxy: perhaps even the universe itself.

There is only one constant in all of that. 

Luke understood the risks in what he did. Projection, of the kind that he utilized -- especially over long distances -- strains the body with the sheer power required to maintain it. He could have died, then and there. It might not have even worked at all if his heart had given out, or a stroke destroyed his brain. But whatever else he had been doing during his long exile, even cut off from the Force, he had continued his exercises. Luke knew that, for his age, his body was still strong and with his determination returned to him through meeting Rey, and reuniting with his old teacher, and seeing that hologram of his sister once more, he would be able to do this.

But it would cost him.

The Jedi Master breathes in, and out, feeling the warmth of the planet's sun bathing his skin. Once, long ago, before he began teaching his nephew and his other students, he had continued his studies into ascension. Yoda had told him about it, periodically, during the brief time they trained together on Dagobah: the inherent rejection of greed for selflessness, and pure compassion. Obi-Wan had trouble teaching it to him, from the other side. Apparently, it took considerable will to maintain one's consciousness from being dispersed into the Netherworld, but Luke knew it was possible. Obi-Wan had been an example to him, that day, on the First Death Star as had Yoda ... and his own father. 

Empty Jedi robes cleaved through on the sterile floor of the Death Star. Empty blankets in a hut on Dagobah. An empty husk of a cybernetic prison burned on Endor. 

Luke had traveled the Galaxy and found most of the clues himself. He never found a definite connection to the Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, or the Ones, or the Force Priestesses that Yoda encountered, but there were some remnants of their teachings: clues with which one could find if they just let them come to them. But all the intellect and proof in the Galaxy, even with spectral visitations, wasn't enough to earn ascension in and of itself. 

It takes an understanding, a wisdom, that Luke began to doubt and turned his back upon years ago. It was the same skepticism that made him see how the old Jedi Order lost its way, blinded by its own Light, seeking to be apart from the Galaxy and the Balance that they claimed to protect. He saw it in how Jedi philosophy seemed to conflict with the facts of the Galaxy, of life itself, in how harmony and struggle are needed to maintain life. He saw it in how the New Republic so quickly forgot the crimes and lessons of the past and turned on the people that made it possible, and the students he attempted to teach -- when he himself had not thought himself ready -- either died, or turned away from the careful lessons whose caution did not reach the most important places: their hearts. 

Luke Skywalker had doubted. He didn't see the point in anything that he accomplished if it was going to end the way it all did, the cycle repeating itself again, seemingly arbitrary and meaningless. He doubted every action that led to the point of attempting to find the beginning again on Ahch-To. In the back of his mind, it felt only fitting for the Omega to return to the Alpha. 

And his doubt, his skepticism, and his negation grew so great that when he found the source texts of the Jedi Order itself and its birthplace, he was going to burn it all to the ground: to free the Galaxy of its grim, austere, oppressive, mouldering weight. 

But then Yoda came again, no longer blocked by his avoidance of the Force: thrust right back into it by his confrontation with Rey. And when he saw Yoda destroy the Tree, he not only remembered, he _understood_. 

The epiphany shook him to his core. Yoda had told him, at some point, about projection: that once, ages ago, it was only through the bolstering power of Dagobah's Force nexus, and that on which the Temple of Lothal was built that he had been able to commune with another young Jedi. Ahch-To is the site of the First Jedi Temple. Like Dagobah, it too is full of life ... and even it has its own nexus in the Dark Side in the form of the underwater cavern. But when Luke undertook his technique, this final technique, the cavern no longer scared him. Without a person misusing its power, the nexus became just another element of life and the cycle: a place of prophecy that inspired Rey, and helped fuel his effort along with the rest of the planet.

His mind found Crait. He knew that place. He had been there, long ago, as a young Rebel with a lot to prove. And now, older and having faced his doubt, he saw it for what it really was. Crait was a battlefield: a place haunted by the conflicts of the past, and ancient blood spilled. Even the salt-flats seemed to mirror this as no one on that world, Resistance or First Order member, successors to the Rebellion and the Empire alike, Jedi or Sith, could leave anything other than a footprint there the colour of spilled blood. 

Perhaps it is his Skywalker bloodline that allowed him to go so far. Even Yoda had never attested to physically touching another as a projection, or creating a replica of an object. Even non-Force sensitives, even droids like Threepio, could sense him there, or at least the sheer depth of the energy he was emitting. This planet, this old conflict, called to him. 

Luke had no illusions, a terrible pun if he really thought about it. He had a lot of blood on his hands. The First Death Star didn't destroy itself, or the countless other Imperial personnel over the years that followed, or the students that died on his watch, or the countless others killed by his nephew and the other students that left him for Snoke. But he also knew -- he also knows -- that the cycle can be stopped. It can be broken. Without violence. Without feeding the Dark Side.  
  
It can end.

The Jedi Master feels even lighter in the sunlight now. He did it. He remembered Obi-Wan's sacrifice to Vader, to Luke, on the First Death Star. He saw his sister's hologram once again. He told Kylo Ren -- told _Ben_ \-- that he and his father would always be with him. 

And he recalled his promise to Rey. For one last lesson.

And on that salt-encrusted world, stained with the blood of thousands, Luke strode down ... and left no footprint behind him. The Force told him, just as it sings to him now, that this act had made that place numinous, sacred, perhaps even hallowed: not as a place, but as a space in the hearts of everyone -- Resistance or First Order soldier -- who witnessed his final confrontation. It will be remembered. The tale of it will spread, sowing more doubt, stories ... and hope.

And he knows the price. Projection, taking one's spirit and moving it out of one's body while they still live, is a power that can burn the strongest Force-sensitive out faster than a dying star. But he also knows, now, that is the first step. The power of the Force engulfs him, encompassing him, holding him like his sister, like his lost mother would have done ... One couldn't draw on the power that he did, and simply walk away.

No. This is a transition. This is the next step. The first step into a larger world ... 

At this point, one can either take this step, or die ... 

And as Luke lets go of all his attachments, leaving only the light and love inside of him, he decides that his journey -- right now -- is just the beginning. 


End file.
